Windows desktop 1.28929.0 (MSIX): whole app exits on GPU process crash, triggered by session preview/Browser pane

What happens

On Windows 11 the desktop app (MSIX build 1.28929.0) dies several times a day — window disappears, no error dialog, all open sessions lost. There is no OS-level crash record: no Application Error (event ID 1000) for Claude.exe in the Windows Application log, and no Crashpad dump is produced.

In %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\main.log every single termination ends with the same line, and the log then simply resumes at the next Starting app:

[info] GPU process gone: {
  type: 'GPU',
  reason: 'crashed',
  exitCode: 101457950,
  serviceName: 'GPU'
}

(101457950 = 0x060C201E)

So the GPU process dies and takes the whole app down with it.

Trigger

All six occurrences today are preceded, within 8–70 seconds, by session preview / Browser-pane activity. Nothing else is logged between the preview event and the crash line.

| crash (local) | last preceding preview event |
|---|---|
| 11:21:04 | 11:20:55 [Preview] Created browser preview |
| 15:01:12 | 15:00:43 [Preview] capturePreviewScreenshot failed (x2) |
| 17:32:43 | 17:32:32 [Preview] Created browser preview |
| 18:27:09 | 18:27:01 [Preview] Created browser preview |
| 18:38:50 | 18:37:42 [Preview] Created browser preview |
| 19:28:52 | 19:28:20 setFocusedSession + [WarmLifecycle:preview] Warming up session + startShellPty |

It appears more likely with several sessions open and when switching focus between them (each session warms its own preview view).

Looks like a regression in 1.28929.0

GPU process gone appears 6 times in the current log — all of them on 1.28929.0. Four rotated logs covering 2026-07-25 … 2026-08-10 (builds 1.24012.9, 1.25927.0, 1.26832.0; 51 app starts in total) contain zero occurrences of that string. The app updated to 1.28929.0 on 2026-08-12.

Ruled out

• Graphics driver. Was Intel 31.0.101.3358 (2022). Updated to 32.0.101.7088 (2026-06-17, latest for 11th–14th Gen branch) + reboot — crash reproduced 11 minutes later with an identical signature.
• Kernel display driver / TDR. No 4101/4102 events in the System log at any point, on either driver version. The display driver is not resetting; only the Chromium GPU process dies.
• Memory. 16 GB machine; at crash time 2.5–6.6 GB free, GPU process RSS 100–240 MB (per the app's own [process-memory] lines).
• Sleep / Modern Standby. Standby transitions do not line up with the crash times.
• Package integrity. Get-AppxPackage reports Status Ok; the crashes continued across several app restarts and two clean reboots.

Environment

• Claude desktop 1.28929.0, MSIX / Microsoft Store install, CCD 2.1.227, Electron node 24.18.0
• Windows 11, build 26200.9168
• Intel Core i5-12500H, Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics (no discrete GPU), 16 GB RAM
• GPU driver 32.0.101.7088 (also reproduced on 31.0.101.3358)

Expected

A GPU process crash should not terminate the application. Chromium normally restarts the GPU process (or falls back to software compositing) and keeps the window alive; here the whole app goes away and every open session is lost.

Two things that would help even if the underlying GPU crash is hard to fix:

1. Survive a GPU process crash instead of exiting.
2. Provide a way to run the app without GPU acceleration. There is no obvious one for an MSIX install: no execution alias to pass --disable-gpu to, and no hardware-acceleration setting in the app or in config.json.

Note on reporting

The on-disk Sentry queue (%APPDATA%\Claude\sentry\queue) is empty and its newest entry is weeks old, so these crashes may not be reaching automatic crash reporting.